International Media Watch of news headlines and current affairs reports about Romania

Friday, September 18, 2009

Romania’s Opposition Asks for No-Confidence Vote Over Wage Bill

By Irina SavuSept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Romania’s main opposition parties will ask parliament today to hold a vote of no confidence in the coalition government of Prime Minister Emil Boc two months before presidential elections on Nov. 22.

The Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania will seek the vote after Boc submitted a bill aimed at cutting public staff costs to 7 percent of gross domestic product by 2015 from 9.5 percent, Liberal official Eugen Nicolaescu said on Antena 3 TV.

The bill is a condition of a bailout granted by an International Monetary Fund-led group.“A single wage bill, which should balance revenue and rationalize expenses, can’t be passed during an economic crisis,” Nicolaescu said. “Such a law is better drafted at times of sustained economic growth, when the private sector can absorb the unemployed people.”The coalition government, which has 70 percent of the seats in Parliament, said on Aug. 11 it will send all state workers on 10 days leave without pay this year and fire some next year to meet budget-deficit target.

The leave will cut costs by about 0.3 percent of and help the government meet its 2009 deficit target of 7.3 percent of GDP.Romania needs to fulfill the targets to comply with the terms of a 20 billion-euro ($28 billion) loan package that’s financing the current-account and budget gaps. The budget target agreed with the IMF compares with a deficit of 4.8 percent last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Irina Savu in Bucharestisavu@bloomberg.net.